Not your average peak oil theory, from MacquarieKate McKenzie, Financial Times
Mainstream financial analyst types tend to shy away from talking about peak oil - even when they are talking up a looming supply crunch, this is usually attributed to the short- to mid-term under-investment problem. So a presentation by Iain Reid, a senior oil analyst at Macquarie Bank, stirred much excitement when some details were published this week.

Under a slide titled ‘Not your average peak oil theory’, he writes that there is no shortage of oil reserves, but problems of access, technology and risk. Meanwhile, there are three mini-trends: resource nationalism; new oil supplies being technologically challenging; and much of the easy oil in politically difficult regions.

...The heading says it all really, but here are a few key points about the slide:

1. Capacity peaks this year at 89.6m barrels/day

2. Supply peaks in 2014 at 89.1m barrels/day

3. Spare capacity starts ends after 2013...
(18 Sept 2009)

Total issues oil shortage warningBBC News
Chief executive Christophe de Margerie warned that too little has been spent trying to tap into new oil reserves because of the economic crisis.

"If we don't move [now] there will be a problem," Mr de Margerie said. "In two or three years it will be too late."

He also said he thought oil prices would rise to more than $100 a barrel, from their current level of around $70.

"The reserves of oil are there, but if you don't invest they don't come on the market," Mr de Margerie said.

"What we have to decide today is production for 2010-2015. So in between we might be faced with insufficient oil to meet demand."...
(21 Sept 2009)

These are the questions that Andre Angelantoni thinks you should be able to answer in order to plan for the next 10 to 15 years. Angelantoni believes there are radical changes ahead for our society -- and no, it's not the rapture he sees coming, but a post-peak-oil world.

Simply put, peak oil is the point when the world hits the maximum rate of petroleum extraction, and after that, production begins to decline. Since the calculations of geophysicist M. King Hubbert, Ph.D., in 1956, there has been speculation about when (and for some, if) the world will hit its peak production of oil.

Angelantoni is among the crowd of geologists, oil-industry experts and numbers crunchers that believes we are at or near peak, and the way down will be a painful and bumpy ride.

Petroleum is a finite substance, and we have reached the inevitable point at which it simply isn't possible to increase the rate at which we extract it from the ground. Most oil-producing countries, including the U.S., have already seen their glory days and are now watching output from their wells gradually dwindle. Only a few nations are early in the production cycle and able to ramp up the rate of flow.

...Not everyone shares his certainty. Bill McKibben, the renowned environmental writer and climate-change activist is a little more cautious:

Who knows if we're actually going to see oil production peak sometime soon? Not me. I've read persuasive arguments that we will from writers like Michael Klare and James Howard Kunstler and Paul Roberts. I've also read confident counterarguments from people who've been right in the past, like Daniel Yergin of Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

Oil depletion is not a straightforward physical law, like the fact that the molecular structure of carbon dioxide traps heat that would otherwise radiate back out to space. Instead, it's a detective story that turns on questions like, are the Saudis lying about how fast oil is being depleted in their giant field at Ghawar?

Energy consultant Michael Lynch recently wrote an anti-peak-oil op-ed in the New York Times by. He wrote, "Like many Malthusian beliefs, peak-oil theory has been promoted by a motivated group of scientists and laymen who base their conclusions on poor analyses of data and misinterpretations of technical material."...
(17 Sept 2009)

Asher Miller of Post Carbon Institute commented on the Huffington Post version of this story:

Tara, the quote you have from Bill McKibben is from 2005. You may wish to see if his thinking has changed in the four years hence. Bill and Richard Heinberg are both Fellows with Post Carbon Institute (as are 27 others--including David Hughes, a leading Canadian fossil fuel geologist, and David Fridley, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs).

Lynch's op-ed in the NYT was a last gasp attempt to deny what is becoming an increasingly recognized reality--one that even folks like Fatih Birol at the International Energy Agency, never before accused of being a den of peak oil conspiracists, have come to accept."

This is a long piece by Lohan that also includes a significant discussion of the Transition Towns movement's response to "life after peak oil.", and as usual, lots and lots of comments. -KS

Squeezing the last bit of oil from Mother EarthDavid Olive, thestar.com
It follows as night the day that the unquestionably finite nature of fossil fuels inevitably will cause significant changes in the global economy and our way of life.

But the continued lack of absolute certainty – which will continue for many years – about the timing and severity of the crisis offers room for diehard "denialists" to continue with their arguments that a world without oil that can be extracted viably is a myth.

With the final week of August marking the 150th anniversary of commercial oil development, peak-oil deniers have become even more forceful in their arguments.

They have launched spirited attacks on the "alarmists" in recent weeks, stoutly maintaining that there remains a frontier of undiscovered mammoth oil discoveries, and that extraction technology is advancing at such a rapid pace of increased sophistication that even the most challenging deep-sea deposits and complex geological formations can be tapped...
(18 Sept 2009)

UK at risk of global energy shock, says MPC's Andrew SentanceAngela Monaghan, The Telegraph
Andrew Sentance, a member of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), highlighted the inflationary threat posed to the UK by global energy prices, which he said were likely to rise as the world emerged from recession.

During a speech in London he said the energy market was a "prime candidate" as the source of the "next big global shock".

Mr Sentance suggested there was a limit to what the MPC would be able to do to protect the UK from such shocks.

"Recent events have provided a cautionary warning about what monetary policy can and cannot achieve. We cannot isolate the UK economy from major global economic shocks or from global price volatility affecting energy and other commodity prices," he said...
(21 Sept 2009) You can find the link to the keynote address here.

Editor's NotesIn my own view oil companies, the IEA etc. are unlikely to come out and accept peak oil because in theory there are always huge reserves (tar sands, oil shale), it will just be that it won't be feasible to keep up current production rates because of 'lack of investment'. I might call that peak oil, they probably never will, but the effect will be the same. -SO